Making 3D Shapes

Over the past few days, Asia class have had the pleasure of making their very own 3D shapes. Using a formula to figure out the internal angles of a regular pentagon (108 degrees,) most of us decided to make a pentagonal prism. Those who didn’t, either did an octagonal prism or a hexagonal prism.

First of all, we started by drawing a pentagon/hexagon/octagon. Our shapes had to be regular to fit together, so we used protractors to get the exact and equal angles. We also had rulers to make every single line straight.

After we had done that, we took care in drawing rectangles off each side of the pentagon. Because they also had to be equal, we used another protractor to make every angle was 90 degrees.

For the third step, we had to draw on the flaps. They were needed as they played a big part in sticking all the edges together. If it weren’t for these flaps, the shape would just fall apart as soon as it was constructed. First, we drew a 1cm line diagonally inwards. After that, we repeated it on the other side of the line. Then, we joined them together with another longer line. We had to be careful that we didn’t draw on a flap on the side that would join up with another edge with a flap on.

Finally, we cut it all out. Being careful not to cut through the shapes, we eventually had the final net. Then, we would have to fold it all up. This was definitely the hardest stage. Any tiny mistake that had been made before was likely to cause us to restart.

Eventually, we managed to construct every shape displaying a pleasing result.